


Language

by Imbroglio



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imbroglio/pseuds/Imbroglio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loose lips sink ships. And start inside jokes that follow you for decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Language

     They’d been rehearsing for hours, and Steve was exhausted—not physically, but mentally. Even after a month of regular performances, he always managed to step the wrong way, push too hard or not hard enough, say his lines in a monotone or with too much animation.

     It was hard, too, because of the sounds constantly barraging his ears. He was used to hearing the world through a layer of cotton, missing subtext because he couldn’t hear the tones, but now he heard every whisper, every heel tapping against the floor, every breath and shuffle and squeak, not to mention the shouts and curses and arguments that inevitably broke out after everyone had had enough of rehearsing. He wasn’t sure whether his senses were normal for healthy people or if the serum had heightened them, but he inclined to believe the latter—there was no way everyone could function at this level of awareness.

     And that wasn’t even considering the smell. Good God. The perfume some of the women used. Not bad, exactly, but there was just so much of it.

     He tightened his hand around the pulpwood shield and took a deep breath just in time to catch a lungful of one perfume in particular. It belonged Judith, one of the older chorus girls, who had been in the business since her childhood. When Steve saw her between performances, she usually looked tired and a little distracted. But on the stage, she was pure professionalism. She was the one who had pulled Steve aside those first few perfomances to give him pointers—talk from his belly, keep his chin up, act like he actually thought he was doing something important—and she was the one who occasionally directed him with a flicker of her eyes or a subtle nod when he hesitated, long after everyone else had decided he must have the whole dancing monkey thing down pat.

     She marched past his back, singing—she had a great voice—and turned to face the imaginary audience, marching in place behind Steve’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her wave slightly, and he glanced back out to see who she was waving at. There were two small kids hovering in the shadows just in front of the stage, wide-eyed and delighted. The taller one waved back.

     Judith cleared her throat, and Steve lifted the shield. He read his lines dutifully, though not with much enthusiasm. He just couldn’t find any—he was enthusiastic about a lot of things, but using the second chance he’d been given to read cheesy lines for an audience who was likely only there to see the show? That wasn’t really one of them.

     Disaster struck just a few moments after.

     Judith was supposed to spin, then land one foot forward, arms outstretched, chin up, just behind Steve’s shoulder. That part went well. Steve was supposed to step forward to give her room to do all this. He did not do this, so Judith didn’t have room to complete the maneuver. She landed to close to the woman behind her, who went down hard. They both landed on the hardwood floor with a clatter of heels and a painful crashing of elbows. and Steve almost stepped on Judith’s hand when he tried to help her up.

     She pushed him away, getting to her feet and straightening her skirt as if nothing had happened, her face composed in the show-must-go-on expression everyone who’d ever worked with her knew by heart. And then she looked down at her leg and the trickle of blood running down her stocking.

     “Shit,” she said flatly.

     Steve wasn’t sure where it came from—maybe from a half-memory of his mother, compressed lips and raised eyebrows, the one time he’d dared use the words he heard on the street. Yet much as he loved and respected (and, on several occasions, feared) his mother, it still horrified him to hear her voice coming out of his throat. He meant to apologize profusely, but instead—

     “Language,” said Sarah Rogers’ son.

     Several people giggle. Judith, now kneeling and gingerly touching the scrape, looked up at him. “Sorry?”

     He opened his mouth to try to get himself out of this mess, but before he could say anything, Judith stood up and poked him in the chest. Her nostrils flared a little.

     “Did you just say—“ she began, almost incredulously. “Pardon my French, Captain goddamn America, but this is probably the only pair of silk stockings in New England and now they’re ripped, your fault by the way, and maybe you’re a man, but these are precious and if you can’t accept that as good enough reason to indulge in a little blue language, then you can take your righteous little shield and you can stick it right up your—“

     “The kids!” Steve says, his hands up.

     Judith, thank all the powers that be, stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the two kids, who had edged up to the stage and were leaning toward them, eyes shining in that particular way that only the eyes of a child who is about to learn some new words can shine. She closed her mouth, gave Steve one more glare, and turned on her heel. The rehearsal continued almost as if nothing had happened, though Judith maintained a stony silence and the rest of the quarrels had died down.

     It took Steve a week and several autographs to find what he was looking for, but soon enough he found himself at the door of the dressing room, hands in his pockets. He couldn’t find the courage to knock. The dressing room was the women’s realm, something entirely foreign and incomprehensible to him. Instead, he wandered down the hall and sat down with his sketchbook, waiting for Judith to emerge. It took forever, but eventually she came out, wearing a dark skirt and a thick coat. She’d reapplied her lipstick. Her legs were bare.

     He stood up and followed her down the hall until they were out of earshot of anyone who might be lurking around, then handed her the sweaty, wadded-up ball. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re right—I just—“

     His voice trailed away as Judith looked at the stockings, then up at him with raised eyebrows. He flushed, realizing too late how inappropriate it was. “I don’t mean anything,” he protested. “It was my fault, and I’m really sorry about it, so I asked the girl at the last post office if she had a pair, and she didn’t, but she had a friend, and the friend had a sister, and it cost me a week’s wages and—oh, damn it all, Judith. I’m just trying to say sorry.”

     She closed her eyes. “Steve Rogers,” she said. “You are a trainwreck.”

     “I’m sorry about your stockings,” he muttered.

     She shook her head. “Forget the stockings. They’re not important.” She smiled suddenly. “Did Captain America just use a—a _swear?”_

     He flushed. “I don’t—“

     She pushed his arm and laughed, the tiny wrinkles around her eyes deepening, but for once not making her look tired. “Can it, Rogers. I’ll keep the stockings. And the image of Captain America interrogating hapless females about the state of their undergarments, thank you very much.”

     His face is already flushed, so the heat creeps down his neck. “I don’t make a habit of it, honestly.”

     She takes him by the elbow and leads him down the hall. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s have a night. I’ll buy drinks if you tell me the complete truth about how you obtained these stockings.”

~

     He peeks through the curtain. There’s a crowd, and it’s going to be a tough night. He glances at the script on the back of his shield and mutters a few words under his breath. Marie and Jenny, standing beside him, glance at him and share an eyeroll.

     “Language, Captain,” Marie whispers. It’s almost a reflex by now.  

     The curtains rise and the show begins.

~

      Bucky is, understandably, furious with Steve. He doesn’t even wait until they have a moment of privacy. He lets Steve have both barrels, right there in front of the base hospital. He should have been inside, but Steve had only been able to stick with him long enough to make sure he got to the door. That was almost two hours ago. Steve had come straight back after Phillips was through with him to make sure Bucky was all right, only to be greeted with a look that could flay his skin off his bones. People stop walking past, going around the long way instead.

     “What were you thinking?” Bucky says. He’s not yelling anymore. His voice is low, calm. It’s almost a monotone, and Steve’s almost scared. (Because he’s not the same Steve now, and if Bucky can’t accept the way he is…)

     “What was I supposed to do?” Steve says, trying to keep the discussion quiet. “I might not have even made it another month, Bucky, especially with you gone. And I had a chance to _do_ something. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”

     “Let some ex-German scientist fill my blood with who-knows-what kinda witch’s brew? Let them turn me into—“ Bucky looks him over, as if for the first time, and Steve isn’t sure if he’s imagining the disgust on his best friend’s face, but he hopes to God he is. “—something I’m not? You shouldn’t be here, Steve. You’re supposed to be in Brooklyn.”

     “You’d be dead if I was,” Steve says desperately. “Or worse. So don’t you dare tell me I made the wrong choice.”

     Bucky steps back, startled. And Steve realizes that it’s not disgust. It’s—fear.

     Then, before he has a chance to wonder why, there’s a fist, and he’s leaning against the wall holding his jaw. Even with the serum, it hurts. Bucky has a hell of a right hook

     Bucky’s got him by the collar, pinning him to the wall. “You,” he says, “are a goddamn idiot.”

     “Language,” slips out. Steve winces and closes his eyes, preparing himself for whatever kind of reaction this will elicit from the new Bucky, the one who’s seen war and death and things Steve doesn’t want to think about.

     Bucky’s hands relax. He looks straight into Steve’s eyes.

     “What,” he says. “The hell.”

     By the time Steve has managed (been forced) to explain everything, Bucky seems to have accepted his metamorphosis and moved on. Steve hates being on this end of Bucky’s mockery. But at the same time, it’s good to hear it again.

~

     Steve creeps down the hall, shield up. Nothing has jumped out at him so far, and that’s starting to worry him a little. He makes it all the way to the end and opens the metal door unscathed, which just doesn’t happen even on a stealth mission. Still, he reaches for the radio.

     “I’m in,” he says. “Dum-Dum, you and Falsworth—oh bloody _hell,”_ he adds as things finally start going wrong and something with too many arms and fangs, actual fangs, leaps out of the shadows for his throat. For a few seconds it’s a little uncertain whether he’s going to be able to put it down and give the Commandos the go-ahead in time for them to make the limited window of opportunity. Finally the thing is unconscious, probably dead. Steve watches it, but tries to avoid actually _looking_ at it, while he reaches for the radio, which is squawking.

     “It’s okay,” he says. “Threat eliminated. Dum-Dum, you’re up. Falsworth, Jones, whenever you’re ready.”

     “Affirmative,” Jones says. “But watch your language, Captain.”

     “Yeah,” adds Morita. “You never know what kind of ears might be listening to us.”

     “Delicate ears,” Falsworth says.

     “HYDRA’s not used to your foul mouth,” says Bucky, because of course Bucky’s going to get in on it. “Don’t want to shock the poor little things, do we?”

     Steve lets them all have their say. By now he’s accepted that he’s got a price to pay if he wants the relief of a good cursing.

~

     The Winter Soldier is fast. Strong. Terrifying.

     In between blows and flashes of pain and desperate attempts to find Sam and Natasha, Steve starts to think he’s maybe not going to get out of this one. They’re matched. And the Winter Soldier is ruthless.

     The ghost loses the mask, and Steve’s world shatters for the fourth or fifth time in his life, harder than it’s ever shattered before.

     “Bucky?”

     “Who the hell is Bucky?” says the ghost with Bucky’s face.

     A half-forgotten impulse flares in Steve’s mind. _Language._

He tries to reach out. Tries to catch Bucky before he disappears again. But his body doesn’t work, and all he can do is stand there thinking about seventy-year-old inside jokes as HYDRA floods in around him and Bucky vanishes.

~

     It’s not like Steve can close his eyes and think he’s back with the Howling Commandos. The Avengers are a different sort of team in a different sort of world, and Steve doesn’t forget that.

     But they’re a team now, and he remembers what that feels like. The weapons are different, but the feeling of trusting a team to follow his orders when they can and reliably improvise when they can’t—that’s the same.

     Plus, they’re still fighting HYDRA. So that’s not all that different.

     Natasha’s not Falsworth. Thor’s not Morita. Sam’s not Bucky (and Bucky’s been tortured, brainwashed, turned into a weapon, and now Steve doesn’t even know where he is or if he’s got somewhere warm to sleep). Tony—well, sometimes he says things Howard would definitely have said, but Stark Jr. is still a world removed from Stark Sr.

      It’s different. But this is his team now.

     “Shit,” says Tony.

     “Language,” says Steve. He doesn’t even realize he did until they bring it up again later.

     He pretends it was a grandpa moment when they start making fun of him, because he doesn’t want to tell that story again. It turns into an inside joke for yet another team, one word they use when things get dark and dicey and they need something to hold onto.

     Steve doesn’t mind.

    

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
